Shuping Wang

Shuping Wang, 2014

Shuping Wang or Wang Shuping ( Chinese  王淑平 , Pinyin Wáng Shuping ; * 20th October 1959 in the county Fugou the province of Henan , People's Republic of China ; † 21st September 2019 in Salt Lake City , Utah , United States ) was a Chinese doctor, who by It became known that it brought to the public a scandal over HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections in blood donors in China between 1992 and 1996. Hundreds of thousands of volunteer plasma donors had become infected with HCV or HIV through improper donation practices. Inadequate testing of the donors resulted in hundreds of thousands more blood product recipients becoming infected with HIV or HCV.

Through her whistleblower activity, she saved tens of thousands of people from serious infectious diseases or saved their lives. She later emigrated to the United States because of the harassment that Wang was subjected to afterwards.

biography

Wang was born in north China's Henan Province, studied medicine and specialized in hepatology . In late 1991 she started working as a doctor in a blood and plasma donation unit in Zhoukou County , Henan. In the previous years, numerous commercially operated plasma donation units had opened across China. In the poor rural regions of Henan Province, the donation institutions were particularly active because many farmers used the regular plasma donation as additional income. Donors were only screened for hepatitis B at the local blood donation unit . However, Wang got the clinical impression that many donors may be infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV). She collected 64 serum samples from blood donors and had them examined at the Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Prevention. 34% of the sera showed reactivity against HCV. She learned from specialist literature that long before 1991 there had been a hepatitis C epidemic in Gu'an ( Hebei Province ) and Zhenjiang ( Jiangsu Province ).

Wang then inspected the equipment for plasma separation and blood donation in the donation unit and discovered that there were numerous processes during donation, plasma centrifugation and reinfusion of the remaining blood components that increased the risk of infectious agents being transmitted to the blood donor. During the plasma donation, the donors came into contact with the plasma of numerous other donors. Wang informed the heads of the donation unit and asked for the procedures to be changed, but was turned down, arguing that it would increase costs significantly. In July 1992, bypassing her immediate superiors, she informed the Ministry of Health in Beijing directly about the conditions in the blood donation unit and recommended a general examination of all blood donors for HCV. The blood donation unit was then visited by a doctor from the Ministry of Health, who told Wang that similar problems existed in numerous other donation units in China.

Shuping Wang then lost her job at the donation unit. She got a job at the local health authority. From there she led, together with colleagues, a. gynecologist Gao Yaojie (高耀潔) continued her epidemiological work and inspected a total of 17 blood donation units in Zhoukou County. The investigators found serious infection risks and unclean work processes in all units. For example, of 20,000 donors in Taikang County, 45% showed evidence of HCV infection. Four unofficially privately operated blood donation units could not be inspected and their contamination status remained unknown.

Wang was very concerned about the results and got the impression that a massive hepatitis C epidemic was taking place in blood donation centers in China. Wang informed the district secretary of Zhoukou, who immediately called all heads of donation units and hospitals in the district to meet. On February 17, 1993, the Beijing Ministry of Health issued a new guideline on requirements for blood product donation. This also included mandatory HCV testing. The directive came into force on July 1, 1993.

In 1993, Wang read a scientific publication that examined the HIV infection rate among drug addicts in Ruili and three other administrative units in Yunnan Province . An HIV prevalence between 40 and 85% was detected there. She then asked the local health department to set up a small laboratory to test blood samples for HIV. In 1994 she received approval, but no financial support, so she had to run the laboratory at her own expense. In March 1995, she tested a serum sample from a donor in Kunming, Yunnan Province, as HIV positive. The donor had tested HIV positive in Yunnan and had been excluded from the donation. Talking to the donor, she learned that they had donated plasma to three donation units in Zhecheng , Huaiyang and Taikang counties in the previous two weeks . Wang then informed the responsible health authority in Henan Province and recommended the immediate introduction of mandatory HIV tests at all blood donation facilities in the province. This was rejected by the authorities, arguing that it would be too costly. In addition, HIV infection and AIDS are considered "foreign diseases" that do not affect China.

Shuping Wang then bought HIV tests from three different manufacturers at his own expense and used them to examine 409 randomly selected donor samples. Each sample was examined with the three different tests. The rate of HIV infection was 13%. She reported these results to the chief of the local health department, who praised her and promised to quickly prepare a report to the provincial health department. When she met with the chief of the agency two weeks later, he questioned her findings and requested a written report, which Wang prepared. Without waiting for the authorities to go further, she then traveled to Beijing with 55 serum samples that had tested positive for HIV in her luggage, in order to have them re-examined at the local Institute of Virology. However, there was a fee of RMB 700 yuan per sample for testing. Wang could not raise this amount because she had now invested all of her savings in her laboratory. She went back disappointed. At the entrance gate, however, she was lucky enough to get in touch with Zeng Yi, the president of the academy. He was very interested and at the same time worried about the reported HIV epidemic in Henan and ordered the immediate testing of 16 serum samples he had brought with him. As a result, 13 of them were clearly HIV-positive and three others were borderline results. The academy director praised Wang's behavior as exemplary and outstanding and announced an immediate report to the responsible ministry. Back at home in Henan, Wang was also commended by the director of the local health department. A little later, however, the tone changed. Wang was asked to erase from her report the information that she first contacted the Henan health authorities before going to Beijing. She refused. At a meeting of the heads of Henan's health department, it was doubted that Wang had discovered the HIV epidemic on his own, to which she angrily replied that one only had to go to one of the 17 plasma donation facilities, where about 500 people with HCV or HIV receive donation every day have been infected. After this scandal, a retired former head of the local health authority visited Wang's laboratory shortly afterwards and threatened her with consequences if she did not close the laboratory. The next day he returned with a club and smashed the entire laboratory facility with it. When the police arrested him, he complained that he was only acting on behalf of others.

On March 14, 1996, by order of the Beijing government, numerous heads of plasma donation facilities were arrested and the facilities were closed shortly afterwards. When these later reopened, from then on all donors were routinely screened for HIV. In the period that followed, it emerged that Henan's authorities were keen to cover up their previous inaction in the face of the HCV and HIV epidemic. The epidemiological data of Wang and her colleagues were also questioned. Wang was released, but was able to work at the Beijing Academy for four years thanks to the intercession of Academy Director Zeng Yi. During this time, she received several threatening phone calls. She wrote several letters to the Minister of Health to draw attention to the problems in Henan. However, these letters were forwarded directly to Henan Provincial Health Authorities.

Since Wang could not stay in Beijing permanently, she applied for a research position abroad. In 2001 she emigrated to the United States, where she later worked as a researcher at the University of Utah .

On August 9, 2001, the Ministry of Health of the People's Republic of China admitted for the first time in a cautious statement that a serious HIV epidemic was unfolding in central China. Although only 23,905 cases were officially reported, the Ministry of Health assumed that up to 600,000 people were infected with HIV. It is estimated that up to half a million people have been infected through improper blood and plasma donation practices. The worst hit was Henan Province.

In 2012, Shuping Wang published an autobiographical report on the Internet platform China Change , in which she described the events surrounding the blood product scandal in Henan from her point of view. Her first marriage in China, which resulted in a daughter, was later divorced, probably mainly because her husband was discriminated against by his colleagues because of her whistleblowing activities. In the United States, she married a second time in 2005 and took the name of her husband Christensen and the first name Sunshine . In the United States, too, she continued to face indirect pressure from Chinese authorities. From September 5, 2019, the play The King of Hell's Palace was on the program of the Hampstead Theater in London . The play dealt with the HIV / HCV scandal in Henan Province in 1992. In an interview, Wang reported on the pressure exerted on her family members still living in Henan in this context.

Wang died at the age of 59, allegedly of a heart attack while hiking with her husband in a canyon near Salt Lake City.

Web links

Commons : Shuping Wang  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In Chinese, the surname - Wang - is usually written first.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Emily Langer: Shuping Wang, whistleblower who exposed China's HIV / AIDS crisis, dies at 59. The Washington Post, September 25, 2019, accessed on September 28, 2019 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Wang Shuping: How I Discovered the HIV Epidemic and What Happened to Me Afterwards. China Change, September 27, 2012, accessed September 28, 2019 (Wang Shuping's personal report on the events in China). 
4. ↑ 郑锡文, 张家鹏, 曲 书 泉, 程 何 菏, 林纪胜, 段 松, 陈艳麟, 段 一 娟, 李大勤, 李志荣, 张桂云, 寇 静 冬, 陈钧, 潘颂峰, 田 春桥, 张勇, 金 莉 (Zheng Xiwen, et al. ) : 1993 年 云南省 瑞丽 等 地 吸毒者 艾滋病 病毒 感染 定 群 研究 [Cohort study of HIV infection among drug users in Ruili City and Longchuan County, Yunnan Province, China] . In: 中华 流行病学 杂志 (Zhonghua Liu Xing Bing Xue Za Zhi), 'Chinese Journal of Epidemiology' . tape 14 , no. 1 , February 1993, ISSN  0254-6450 , p. 3-5 , PMID 8504451 (Chinese).
5. ^ Bates Gill, Jennifer Chang, Sarah Palmer: China's HIV Crisis . In: Council on Foreign Relations (Ed.): Foreign Affairs . tape 81 , no. 2 , April 2002, p. 96-110 , doi : 10.2307 / 20033087 , JSTOR : 20033087 (English).
6. ↑ Lois M. Collins: Utah researcher Shuping Wang, credited with saving thousands as China AIDS crisis whistleblower, dies at 59.DeseretNews, September 27, 2019, accessed September 29, 2019 . 
7. ↑ China admits Aids crisis. BBC News, August 9, 2001, accessed September 29, 2019 . 
8. ↑ Shuping Wang: Whistleblower who exposed HIV scandal in China dies. BBC News, September 26, 2019, accessed September 29, 2019 . 
9. ↑ A HAMPSTEAD THEATER WORLD PREMIERE: THE KING OF HELL'S PALACE. Hampstead Theater, accessed September 28, 2019 . 
10. ↑ FULL STATEMENT FROM DR SHUPING WANG: PRC STATE SECURITY IS PRESSURING ME TO STOP PRODUCTION OF THE KING OF HELL'S PALACE. Hampstead Theater, September 3, 2019, accessed September 28, 2019 .